5.  The applicant was born in 1965 and lives in Chişinău.
6.  On 8 March 2008 at around 4.40 p.m. the applicant’s seventeen-year-old son (V.) died after falling from one of the common-use balconies in an apartment block.
7.  The police opened a preliminary inquiry into the causes of V.’s death, the most likely explanation being suicide.
8.  On 8 March 2008 the investigator in charge of the case (F.) ordered a medical expert report in order to establish precisely the cause of death, the presence and origin of any injuries on V.’s body and whether there was any trace of alcohol or narcotic drugs in his blood. That report was completed on 10 March 2008 and found that V. had died from severe injuries caused by his fall; no traces of alcohol or narcotic drugs had been found in his blood.
9.  Some fifteen persons were questioned as witnesses during the following three months. According to the applicant, some of the witnesses mentioned that V. had talked to two men on the day of his death. Three witnesses (B.A., B.O. and S.V.) allegedly stated that they had seen a young man and a young woman exiting the building and leaving the place in a hurry, taking a taxi shortly after V. had fallen. The applicant also stated that her son had been contacted on his mobile phone number by persons unknown to her and that her son had been upset after these discussions and had destroyed his subscriber identity module (SIM) card. She confirmed her son’s phone number and asked the prosecution to verify who had called him. She also stated that someone had visited her son the evening before the incident and had run away when she went out to see what was going on.
10.  On 24 March 2008 F. proposed that no criminal investigation be initiated since there was no evidence that any offence had been committed, V. having committed suicide. On 4 July 2008 a prosecutor of the Ciocana prosecutor’s office decided not to initiate a criminal investigation.
11.  On 1 August 2008 the applicant challenged that decision before a superior prosecutor. She stated that witnesses had not been questioned in respect of their allegation that they had seen two young persons exiting the building in a hurry immediately after the incident and that no one had asked the relevant mobile phone company to provide information about the phone calls made to her son prior to his death. Moreover, two assistants in a nearby shop had claimed that they had seen V. in their shop some hours prior to his death and that he had fainted there, and had then been taken away by two young men.
12.  On 18 August 2008 a supervising prosecutor annulled the decision of 4 July 2008 as having been taken prematurely without considering other possible causes of death, such as murder by pushing V. from above or provoking him into committing suicide. The investigator was ordered to question the applicant and the witnesses identified by her.
13.  After that date, the preliminary inquiry was extended on many occasions at the request of investigator F. On 12 December 2008 F. proposed that no investigation be initiated. It appears that this proposal was rejected by a superior prosecutor on an unknown date, since F. made similar proposals on 4 February and 29 April 2009. Both times a prosecutor accepted that no investigation should be initiated, but each time a supervising prosecutor found the decision premature and ordered a re-examination of the material by the investigator. The prosecution adopted a further decision not to initiate a criminal investigation on 11 May 2009.
14.  On 17 September 2009 the investigating judge of the Ciocana District Court annulled the prosecutor’s decision of 11 May 2009, finding that the preliminary inquiry conducted before that date had been superficial and “with unexplained omissions”. The investigating authority had not established the place from which V. had jumped or had been pushed, or from what height, and a number of actions that the investigator had requested be taken by various authorities had not been fully carried out. Similarly, the directions given by the prosecutor to the investigator had not been fully followed. Moreover, during the medical expert report regarding V.’s body, the applicant’s rights as an aggrieved party had not been assured since she had not been allowed to ask the expert any questions or to ask for another expert or panel of experts to examine V.’s body, as she had the right to do under the applicable legislation.
15.  Having re-examined the case, on 5 November 2009 investigator F. proposed to the prosecutor that no criminal investigation be initiated. This proposal was rejected on 12 November 2009.
16.  On 8 December 2009 the applicant complained to the Ciocana prosecutor’s office of delays in the investigating authority’s activity in respect of her son’s case. She received no reply.
17.  After that date the investigator proposed to the prosecutor on 29 December 2009 and 19 April 2010 that no criminal investigation be initiated, but both times the prosecutor sent the case for re-examination. In his report of 29 December 2009 the investigator noted, inter alia, that he had held “talks with the medical expert who had carried out the [autopsy], who refused to give any explanations concerning the case, stating that he had indicated all that he knew about this case in the autopsy report”.
18.  On 23 June 2010 the investigator proposed to the prosecutor that no criminal investigation be initiated, listing the medical evidence gathered and the witness statements made. He stated that every time a superior prosecutor had annulled a prosecutor’s decision not to initiate a criminal investigation, the directions given in order to carry out a full investigation had been fully complied with, as far as had been objectively possible. In conclusion he stated that, with the passage of time, any further investigating action was futile, since all possible measures had already been taken.
19.  On 5 July 2010 a prosecutor from the Ciocana prosecutor’s office approved the investigator’s proposal, since there was no evidence confirming that V. had been killed or provoked into committing suicide.
20.  On 20 August 2010 the investigating judge of the Ciocana District Court dismissed the applicant’s complaint as unfounded. That decision was final.